This article presents a collaborative study conducted in a large urban school district, in which the authors surveyed 55 clinicians within the special education system, with a focus on the mental health services provided to students who were receiving related-services counseling as a mandated component of their individualized education plan.…

Parent involvement (PI) programs typically represent an important improvement strategy for schools serving low-income children of color. This pilot study offers an alternative to conventional PI approaches, collective parent engagement (CPE). The study relied on a post hoc, quasiexperimental design, and data were collected from 32 low-income,…

This study investigated school exclusion's relationships with student characteristics, mother characteristics, parental involvement, school location, and service provision. The researchers examined data from 4,837 students in seventh to 12th grade extracted from a national data set. Multivariate results showed that student's age, gender,…

The purpose of this article is to share results of an exploratory qualitative research study designed to shed light on experiences of an interdisciplinary group of elementary school staff and graduate students in a school-based services project. A researcher conducted 20 interviews with staff and graduate students who represented the fields of…

The degree to which parents and teachers perceive they are working together in the best educational interests of children is a critical aspect of school culture. In previous work by Hoy, Tarter, and Woolfolk Hoy, the phenomenon was named "faculty trust" and was measured with data from teachers. The current study builds on Hoy et al.'s work by…

Social workers have pivotal roles to play in facilitating collective parent involvement in economically poor school communities. Using a community-based, participatory, and empowerment-oriented approach to social work practice and research, this study provides empirical support for this claim. It examines the narratives of 17 economically poor…

In many U.S. school districts, there has been a near epidemic of out-of-school suspensions (OSSs) for relatively minor or vaguely defined student offenses. Suspension provides temporary relief to frustrated teachers and administrators and may result in more parental involvement. However, for a large number of at-risk youths, it appears that being…

This secondary analysis of the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project, a randomized study of program participation of children and families in Early Head Start (that is, enrolled in programming prior to children's first birthdays) investigated sociodemographic (race and ethnicity, income level, and maternal education level) and program…

Parents need to play an important role in early intervention services to have a significant effect on children's developmental and social-emotional well-being. With some exceptions, the field of early intervention has failed to engage parents as active and primary mediators of the developmental services their children receive. This failure is…

This study uses a phenomenological approach to investigate elementary school teachers' perspectives on children's mental health service needs. Focus groups were conducted at two elementary schools with differing levels of available social services in a moderate-sized urban midwestern school district. Data collection centered on six prominent…

Home visiting has a long tradition in the social work profession. Recent service delivery reforms have turned to home-based services again to provide more comprehensive and responsive services to children and families. This article applies current methods and procedures for home-based service delivery drawn from family-centered practice to the…

Reports on data collected in interviews about the relationships between lesbian-parent families and their children's schools. The central focus is on themes and issues identified by parents as important in the lives of their families as they interacted with schools. These interactions provide information about successful and failed strategies to…

Article describes the inception, development, and implementation of the Family Builders model. This model addresses children's problematic behaviors and promotes their social and academic competencies through a deliberate process of stimulating and nurturing school-based collaborations between families and schools. (Contains 14 references.)